


The Morning After

by linman



Series: Tenebrae [5]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-02
Updated: 2010-02-02
Packaged: 2017-10-06 23:45:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linman/pseuds/linman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Elisabeth deals with the Council and with the implications of nursing Rupert. Spoilers through S5, "The Gift."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Morning After

**The Morning After**

by L. Inman

 

Elisabeth woke when the book she had been holding slid off her stomach and hit the rug with a loud _whap_.  She jerked her head up and blinked blurrily, then threw the down blanket off her legs and dragged herself off the couch.  The blinds were still drawn, but she could tell it was broad morning; faint lines of daylight had crept into the dim room. 

            She padded quietly into her bedroom to check on Rupert.  He was snoring heavily and looking, if anything, worse than he had the night before.  But at least he was asleep.  Tentatively she laid the back of her hand against his forehead; yes, he was still feverish.  He was certainly not going anywhere today, or tomorrow even.  Did he say he had a plane ticket out of Heathrow in two days?—Make that one day, now.  “As if!” Elisabeth murmured.

            They’d be expecting him back in California, but he wasn’t fit to go back there yet.  Knowing him, he probably hadn’t contacted any of the others, so they wouldn’t know from Shinola about his condition or whereabouts.  She ought to call the house on Revello, but she hadn’t the least notion how to get the number.

            Elisabeth stood cogitating in the doorway for an embarrassingly long time before the answer came to her.  She went and found Rupert’s burberry, and went through all the pockets.  She found his airline return ticket, a few train-ticket stubs, some change, both American and British, a penknife, a pencil stub, a rental-car key, and a cluster of credit card receipts; but no address book.  Wouldn’t Rupert have Buffy’s number memorized anyway?  But maybe there was something in his luggage.  Surely he _had_ luggage.  Elisabeth picked up the rental-car key and stared at it thoughtfully.

            Outside, the light was dazzling and the city was alive with activity.  Elisabeth shook her head and blinked hard, adjusting her glasses and tightening the belt on her robe, which she had thrown on over her leggings and T-shirt.  No one looked askance at her:  you would have thought that Oxford was full of Eccentrics who puttered out their front doors in various states of _deshabille_.  Which car was Rupert’s?  She looked over the row frowningly.  Ah, there—the black one parked at an awkward angle.  She glanced inside—no luggage—then went round to the trunk and popped it open.  Paydirt: a small wheeled suitcase with a collapsible handle.  She heaved the thing out, grunting, and slammed the trunk lid shut.

            Before going back inside she paused to look in the passenger window once more, and saw something she had missed the first time: a little sheaf of papers in the passenger-seat floor area, on top of which sat a flimsy little notebook with gold lettering:  _Addresses_.  “Aha!” Elisabeth said.  She unlocked the door and stepped between the curb and the car (almost losing one of her carpet slippers in the process) to scoop up the papers and address book.  She curled them neatly into a roll, stuffed the lot into her robe pocket, worked her carpet slippers more firmly under her toes, and locked up the car.

            It was as she was wrangling the suitcase onto the pavement that she noticed the occupied car a few slots up the row:  a nondescript black sedan with a young sullen-faced man smoking in the driver’s seat, and another next to him, whose face was obscured as he struggled with a shiny new map of Oxford.  She turned away sharply, before she could meet eyes with either of them.

            Her heart beat faster.  So the Council had succeeded in following Rupert after all.  They were watching her flat like cats outside a mousehole.  She reached shakily down for the handle of the suitcase and began to pull it after her toward her front door.

            She had only gone a few steps when her fear flipped suddenly over into anger.  Except for her little prank with Brian, she had taken extra care to stay out of the Council’s way: it didn’t seem at all wise to alert them to her existence, as it would doubtless wind up placing her in their power; but on the other hand, Rupert was expected to network his own friends, and if he preferred their ministrations to those of the Council of Watchers, who were they to interfere?

            Elisabeth executed an about face, a remnant of her marching-band days, and began to drag the suitcase the other way.  It bumbled and growled its way behind her until she stopped directly in front of the passenger window of the Watchers’ car.  She rapped sharply on the glass:  the man with the Oxford map looked up at her, startled, and the young turk in the driver’s seat glared.

            The Oxford map one powered the window down.  “Excuse me?” he said, in perfect bewilderment.  “Can I help you, ma’am?”

            “That’s all for you,” Elisabeth said.  “You can push off now.”

            The young one bristled.  “And who the fuck are you?”  Elisabeth ignored him.

            “I beg your pardon?” the older one said.

            For a fleeting moment Elisabeth had a giddy moment of mixed hilarity and fear: had she been wrong?  But looking at the older man’s face (a perfect study in innocent confusion), her confidence returned as his familiar features clicked into place in her mind.

            “It’s Mr. Robson, isn’t it?” she said pleasantly.

            The young one sneered.  “I don’t know what you’re playing at, tart,” he said, “but you’d better piss off sharpish.”

            Instead of looking at him, Elisabeth gave her disparaging glare to Mr. Robson, bracing her hands on the windowsill of the car.  “You’re superfluous,” she told him.  “There’s no need to keep a watch on this flat.  Rupert’s too sick to go anywhere, and when he does it’ll likely be straight onto the plane and to that address at which you usually keep him under surveillance.  So if there’s any pissing off to be done, it’ll be by you.”

            “And who the fuck do you think you’re cheeking—” the young turk blustered, but Mr. Robson held up his hand, stemming the flow.

            “I have my orders,” he said stolidly to Elisabeth.

            “And I’m telling you your orders are a waste of time and resources,” Elisabeth said flatly.  “Rupert’s in safe hands, if his safety is in fact what you care about.”

            “Safe hands,” snorted the young driver.  “Oh, I’ll _bet_ he’s safe—safe in the hands of his little tart.”

            Elisabeth did not spare him the dignity of a glance, but she did notice in her peripheral vision that he had a lovely little shiner under his right eye.  She felt a glimmer of satisfaction:  _Chalk one up to the old man_….

            Before she could tell Robson that she was accustomed to being addressed with respect, Robson said to his companion:  “Shut up.”  He did not remove his eyes from Elisabeth’s.  “It’s a complicated matter,” he said to her.

            Oh, it was complicated all right:  Elisabeth could see it suddenly, as if it were all laid out before her.  Buffy Summers was dead: but the Council couldn’t just pick up where Buffy had left off, because the Slayer line didn’t pass through her anymore—it passed through Faith, the rogue Slayer who was more or less permanently incarcerated in some California prison for murder.  Not much scope for using the Slayer as the Council’s tool for fighting evil _there_; and they’d already tried to assassinate her once, only to fall foul of the combined antagonism of Buffy, Angel, Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, and the L.A.P.D.  The memory of these facts only made Elisabeth angrier.

            “I suppose I should be grateful you’re not camped out here with the wetworks squad,” she said bitterly. 

            “Damn right,” the young turk said, but both Elisabeth and Robson were thoroughly ignoring him now.

            “We’re at a bit of a crossroads,” Robson admitted, making the young man stare at him in horror.

            “And you expect to find me sympathetic.”  Elisabeth pushed off from the car and found the handle of Rupert’s suitcase again.  “In all frankness,” she said, bringing her Midwestern drawl for emphasis, “I don’t have much use for Watchers—” Robson convulsively glanced around to check no one was listening, as Elisabeth wasn’t really troubling to lower her voice— “but Rupert Giles is a friend.  He’ll be safe with me, and he won’t get into any trouble.  That’s as much as you can hope for from him right now, so you may as well leave.”

            “You can’t make us leave,” sneered the young turk.  Robson rolled his eyes.  Elisabeth had the distinct impression that this fellow was on his way out.  She thought about making a crack about Council nepotism, but decided on balance to stick to her plan of ignoring him altogether.

            In the end she merely shrugged.  “Play it however you like,” she said to Robson.  “Your call.”  She lugged and tilted the suitcase till it was pointed the other direction and prepared to head back down the pavement to her door.

            “Wait,” Robson said.

            Elisabeth turned.

            “Who are you?”

            Elisabeth smiled dryly.  “I would have thought there’d be a dossier on me in the Council’s files by now.  I’m disappointed.  Well, at least there’s probably a file somewhere on the person or persons unknown who loaded up Quentin Travers’s Lexus SUV with garden snakes.”  Elisabeth shook her head, smiling.  “I’d’a loved to have seen his face.”

            She went her way, undeterred; but had the satisfaction as she turned away of seeing the young turk’s mouth wide open and a faint, very Watchery smile in Robson’s face.

 

*

 

Back in the house, she rifled Rupert’s luggage on the couch and removed the dirty clothing to put in the wash.  There was nothing of much significance in the suitcase besides clothes for a week’s journey, the nicer articles packed (and then more messily repacked) in tissue paper to prevent wrinkling.  She pulled the sheaf of papers and the address book out of her robe pocket, laid them on her desk atop the piles of open books and papers that represented her work on her essay; took up the address book and flipped to the ‘S’ section.  The number of the house was there, in Rupert’s small, neat handwriting.  Elisabeth drew a breath and put down the address book.  It would be too early to call Sunnydale as yet; she would wait a few hours till the afternoon.  She let out the breath she’d drawn, and tried to ignore the small shake in her fingers.

            The rest of the papers were mostly unenlightening, car rental agreements and a flight itinerary—until she came to the last, a stapled packet titled “Slayer Guardian Termination Materials.”  Below the header was a table of contents:  “Guardian Watcher’s Duties” followed by the subheads Report of Final Combat, Release of Watcher’s Diaries, Sealing Vows (whatever those were); then “Reassignment”, “Stipendiary Alterations”, “Retirement and Pension”, and “Honorariums and Privileges.”

            A knot forming in her stomach, Elisabeth flipped slowly through the packet.  It had clearly been prepared by the Council’s secretaries; Rupert would never have used a computer with a high-quality laser printer to prepare this.  She read carefully through Rupert’s sober account of the “Final Combat”; it was pretty much as she knew it: Dagonsphere, troll hammer, Buffybot—Glory dead in combat, with a deceptive level of detail that obscured Rupert’s role (“I wouldn’t give that to them either,” Elisabeth whispered); the ritual bloodletting of the Key, clearly named as Buffy’s sister—no harm in letting that fall now, as Dawn no longer opened anything—Buffy’s willing sacrifice.  A coda in which Rupert outlined plans being set in motion for protecting the Hellmouth in Buffy’s absence.

            Despite the bloodless austerity with which Rupert had written his report, Elisabeth had a sudden choking sense of his nakedness before the Council.  She swallowed the dry ache in her throat and flipped on to the next section.  Release of the Watcher’s Diaries; well, of course—a Guardian Watcher knew his diaries were more important than those of a Watcher at an ordinary post, and liable to release once his Slayer was dead.  The Sealing Vows turned out to be a mutual agreement between the Council’s representatives and the Watcher that the Slayer’s secrets would not be revealed to any other being.  “Well,” Elisabeth said, her eyes on Rupert’s photocopied signature (small and sober, like all his writing, but with a savage, graceful flourish on his T-cross), “at least they have some decency.”  Though, she remembered, Rupert assumed they were following him to make sure he didn’t break this vow; and how exactly could Rupert bring any recriminations if they broke it?  Elisabeth sighed and turned to the final pages: a list of posts currently open for Rupert to choose among—easy posts, by the look of them—a rundown of the manner in which his salary would increase (increase, Elisabeth noticed, not decrease)—instructions for early retirement—free run of all libraries—speaking engagements, if he chose, to Watcher conclaves around the world—

            Elisabeth flipped the packet shut with a slap.  “Talk about your thirty silver pieces,” she murmured.  Her stomach roiled.

            From her bedroom she heard a creak of the mattress, then a moan.  She put down the packet and hurried in to him.

            He was lying on his back breathing fast, and his eyes darted around him, wincing at the sunlight, searching for something he could recognize.  He was near panic.  She moved quickly into his sightline but did not offer to touch him, instead relying on her voice to get his attention.  “Rupert,” she said quietly.  “It’s all right.  You’re in a safe place.  It’s okay.”  Not that it was, but it was something one said.

            Rupert’s eyes fixed on her, but no meaning seemed to come into his face.  “You know me,” she said.  “Elisabeth Bowen.  You recognize me?”

            He let his head fall back.  “Of course I recognize you.  I’m not that delirious.”

            She let out her breath in a full sigh.  “Good.”  She moved closer to the bedside, looking down at him.  “You look pretty awful.  How do you feel?”

            Rupert had shut his eyes, and he left them shut.  “Like warm shit.”

            She snorted a laugh.  “Fairly commensurate, then.  Want some tea?”

            “I don’t want any bloody tea.”

            “Okay,” she said.  He opened his eyes to her, clearly surprised that she did not argue, but she was already moving away, around the bed to the window, where she moved aside the curtain to look outside as she opened the window wider to the air.  The sedan was gone.

            “What are you looking for?” he asked.

            She turned.  She had not been expecting him to be so perspicacious.  She gave him a grimacing shrug.  “Dunno really,” she said, moving again to conceal the mistake.  She came back to his side and sat down on the edge of the bed, gingerly so as not to disturb him.  He looked really awful at this close range:  there were puffed bruises under his eyes, his stubble was a dirty silver coating his sunken skin, and as he moved to accommodate her, a sour, sick smell rose from his T-shirt.  His hair was half-flattened, half tortured into fantastic shapes.  Elisabeth was unable to stop the sigh.

            He opened his eyes, pale hazel in the daylight, and zeroed his gaze on her face.  “What were you looking for?” he asked again, in a tone that, however weak, would brook no dissimulation.

            She lowered her shoulders and sighed deeply.  “Your Mr. Robson was out there.  I told him to go away.  Looks like he did.”

            “You _spoke_ to him?”

            Elisabeth sighed again.  “Yes,” she said.  “I figured if he’s here, there’s no point pretending he isn’t.”

            Rupert groaned.  “I didn’t mean to do this to you.  I thought I’d lost them, damn it.  Now they know about you—probably planning to ambush you right now—”

            “Maybe,” Elisabeth said, amused, “but probably not today.  Anyway, I think Robson likes me.  He’s a Watcher, unlike his stoaty little companion.  Where does the Council dig up twats like that?”

            Rupert answered only with feverish eyeroll.

            “I noticed you gave him a pretty little shiner.  Good for you.”

            “I thought you disapproved of my antics last night.”

            “I do.  I just happen to be glad they resulted in pain for that guy.”

            He snorted a laugh, then groaned again.  “My head’s killing me.”

            “That’s not surprising,” Elisabeth said.  “You haven’t eaten anything recently, have you?”

            This raised a more urgent groan from him, and he turned his head.  “Please don’t—mention—”

            “Sorry,” she said.  “We are going to have to get something down you soon, though.  You’re still in a bad way, if you haven’t already guessed.”

            Her words sounded harsh in her own ears, but she couldn’t help it; she had always let other people do the nursing and the handling of emergencies, and felt at a loss now watching Rupert blink and resist the urge to writhe.

            “Rupert….” She tried to frame the question delicately.  “Do you…have a regular doctor in England?”

            “No,” he muttered, gritting his teeth.  “No doctor.”

            “Does that mean, No, I don’t have a doctor—or No, I don’t _want_ a doctor?” Elisabeth said.

            “Don’t want one,” he said.

            “Out of your hands,” she said.  “Do you have one?”

            “No,” he said: a single-syllabled masterpiece of triumphant misery.

            Elisabeth pursed her lips and let out a sigh.  This was the sort of thing that made her doubt her basic humanity:  simultaneous with her concern for him was an urge to hurt him, to make him sorry—for what, she wasn’t sure; frustration at his stubbornness didn’t seem to cover it.  But all she said was, “If your fever hasn’t come down by the afternoon I’m calling a doctor.”

            She got up and moved toward the door, but his next words stopped her.  “I’m sorry,” he said.

            Remorse hit her in the solar plexus, and she turned around.  “No,” she said huskily, “I am.  I’m very bad at this.”  She drew close to his bedside again, more words on her lips, but they died unspoken; she moved a hand to stroke his where it lay on top of the covers.  After a moment, she blurted:  “Why did you come to me?”

            He blinked up at her face, his feverish gaze searching and slightly pained.  “You don’t have to answer that,” Elisabeth said quickly, recovering herself.  “It doesn’t matter.  I’m glad you did.  Don’t worry about it.  Just…we’ll get you well, and on your way back home.”

            Rupert shut his eyes.  “Home,” he murmured bitterly.  Then he opened them again.  “I need to—could you—?”  He stirred, trying to sit up, and she pulled back the covers and put out a hand ready to support him when he got his feet to the floor.  He drew a heroic breath and tried to stand up on his own, but his knees shook under him and he sat down again sharply, the mattress creaking in mild protest.  “I think,” he said mildly, “I may need help.”  New sweat shone on his forehead.

            Unbidden, Elisabeth broke into a smile.  “You think?”  She swallowed the rest of her laughter to get her arm under his and lever him to his feet.  They proceeded slowly out of her room, one step at a time.  “God,” Elisabeth said, struggling under the awkward weight of his arm and shoulder, “you’re burning up.”

            He said nothing; she craned her head up to get a look at his face.  It seemed that it wasn’t just a literary convention to say that people looked green when sick: interesting, she thought.  He clung to her shoulders, keeping his eyes on the bathroom door as they staggered slowly along.

            In the bathroom she let him down onto the toilet seat as gently as she could, where he planted his elbows on his knees and dropped his forehead into his hands.  She decided to leave him with the last scraps of dignity and let him take care of his business himself; she, meanwhile, intended to do what she could about that damned fever.  She bustled out to the utility alcove to get some washcloths from the top of the dryer, and on her way back nicked the plastic dishpan from under the kitchen sink.

            Back in the bathroom she turned on the cold tap and ran it over her fingers a moment preparatory to filling the dishpan, keeping an eye on him in the meantime.  He had not raised his head from his hands, and she wasn’t sure if he’d already done what he needed.  “Rupert,” she said uneasily, “when you’re ready, let’s get you back to bed.”

            He raised his head, to answer, she thought—but then she saw the urgent inward look and his vague outstretched hand, and plucked the dishpan off the counter and held it ready for him, just in time.

            He didn’t have much to bring up, but it didn’t stop him heaving for a long time; he was shaking too hard to hold the plastic tub, so she held it with one hand and used the other to hold his head braced up from the crown.  Her mind used the time to rant at him:  _Rupert, you idiot bastard, why did you let it get to this point?  You should have gone back to the hospital, instead of—damn and blast it to hell, the Council could have bloody well waited for their goddamned report—damn Robson and the rest of them, stoats all of them—why’d you give them yourself in this condition?—If you can’t keep anything down you’re going to the hospital for sure, I don’t care if you don’t forgive me—Don’t need a doctor, my fucking foot—Why didn’t you let yourself collapse before now, it’s not like a little extra work would hurt Willow and the others—Dammit, you don’t owe anybody anything, what the hell were you thinking?  And if the point was to kill yourself filling in all the blanks, why come to me?  You should have known I was going to—_

            It looked as though he was finished.  Elisabeth put down the tub at his feet and went to wet a washcloth at the still-running tap.  She saw him reach down shakily and pick up the tub to spit in it, once, with the faintest air of sardonic comment.

            She went to him and lifted his chin, to swab his face with the wet washcloth.  “You,” she said tartly, unable to help herself, “are an idiot.”

            As the cloth passed below his eyes he opened them to her with a look that as good as said _Thank you very much.  Aren’t I suffering enough without being dressed down as well?_

            “I don’t care,” Elisabeth answered him.  “Look what you’ve done to yourself.  It’s criminal.”  There was a rawness in her voice she couldn’t control, and his eyes dropped.

            She rinsed the washcloth and washed his face again.  “Give me your hands,” she said, and washed them too, one by one.  She put the dishpan in the bathtub, to rinse later, noting with relief that he hadn’t brought up any blood, and she was spared that worry.

            The trek back to her bedroom was punctuated with lengthy pauses for Rupert to fight his nausea (Elisabeth had thoughtfully grabbed a hand towel for this journey); and he sank back into her bed paler than ever, his breathing shallow.  She covered his shaking body and, after making sure he wasn’t going to spasm into nausea again, went back into the bathroom to rinse out the plastic basin in the tub. 

            He was too sick for her to take care of.  That much was becoming painfully clear.  She turned her subconscious rant upon herself.  She should have called Brian last night, she should have called the hospital the minute he arrived, she should have got a doctor here at the very least—

            She returned to his bedside with the dishpan and a large bowlful of cold water.  “Brought this back in case the nausea makes a curtain call,” she said, placing the dishpan next to his pillow and sitting down gingerly at his side.  “You’re nowhere near getting down any aspirin, are you?”

            He shook his head, eyes closed.  His lips, she saw, were pale and clamped thin.  He opened them briefly to utter, “Sorry.  I’m sorry.”

            “Shh,” she said.  “I’m done with the scolding.  Don’t worry about it any more.  Let’s just tackle this fever.”

            He shivered hard as she brushed his face and arms with the cold wet washcloth.  She kept at it silently for about ten minutes, then wet the cloth thoroughly and arranged it over his broad forehead.  His eyes remained closed. 

            “Could you take some water?” she asked.  He gave his head a small shake.  “Okay,” she said.

            She put a thermometer in his mouth; waited, then read it.  “Your fever’s over 102,” she told him.  “If it doesn’t come down to 100 within an hour, I _have_ to call a doctor.”

            “Nnngh,” was Rupert’s only response.

            “Good, I’m glad you read me.”  But her voice was gentler than it had been.

            “Loud and clear,” he answered, almost inaudibly.

            She smiled again, and bent to kiss his face, just below his closed eye.  “I’m going to have some tea,” she said, getting up.  “Call if you need me.”

            She turned briefly in the doorway, almost just missing the glint of his opened eyes under the washcloth, before he closed them again and sighed deeply.

 

*

 

Elisabeth took her tea, but only managed to consume half of it with any comfort before getting up to pace the livingroom nervously.  She was wracked with a continual urge to go in to him and see if his fever had abated any, but she knew that disturbing him was unlikely to help him convalesce.  She also had very dim hopes of being able to avoid calling for a doctor.  She glanced over at her desk, where the phone book was buried under a pile of notes and papers; she had never shut down her laptop, and she could hear it humming wearily, waiting for her to wake it up and start typing again.

            She was contemplating the unlikelihood of getting back to work today when she heard a bad sound from her bedroom, and hurried in to help.

            He was retching again.  His washcloth had slipped off, and he was partially upright, curled over the basin at his side; but Elisabeth saw that he now had nothing at all to bring up, and his heaves were practically bone-dry.  It no longer comforted her that he wasn’t bringing up blood; straightforward infection or no, he was completely dehydrated and—she felt vaguely at his face—no less feverish than before.

            His paroxysm abated, and he fell back against the pillows with a soft groan.  She took up the fallen washcloth, wet it again, and mopped gently at his hands and face.

            “I think it’s time to call a doctor,” she told him as she rearranged the cloth on his head.

            He nodded acquiescently, shivering.

            “Are you all right for the moment?”

            He nodded again, though he clearly wasn’t.

            “I’ll be right back.”

            She went shaking to her desk and unearthed the phone book from the clutter.  Coins, tokens, and index cards slid and tinkled down like scree from a blasted slope.  Elisabeth opened the book and started wiping through the pages.  How the hell did one call for a doctor in Britain?  Did one call a clinic and ask for advice first, or did one simply dial for an ambulance?  Elisabeth wished she’d educated herself on emergency procedure; it wasn’t as if she was ever going to be quite free of trouble and triage in this bloody dimension.  “Dammit!” she uttered.

            It was then that the doorbell rang.

            Elisabeth strode to the door and rose on tiptoe to the peephole.  A woman she didn’t know, with iron-gray hair.  “I’m not going to mess around with time-wasters,” Elisabeth muttered as she yanked the door open.

            The woman wore a grey tweed dress-suit and carried an awkwardly-bulging satchel crossed over her thin shoulders and sternum.  She peered incisively at Elisabeth’s bathrobed dishevelment through thick glasses.  “Good day,” she said.  “My name is Dr. Kettering-Carter.  I’m a friend of Mr. Robson.  He gave me to understand there is a sick person at this residence.”

            Elisabeth rolled her whole body as well as her eyes.  “Do you people never give _up_?” she growled, bracing herself wearily in the doorway.  “What makes you think I’m letting a Council doctor in here?”

            “I’m not Council,” the doctor said equably.  “I’m a friend of Mr. Robson.  Watchers do,” and here her thin lips moved in a dry smile, “find their non-Council-affiliated friends invaluable at times.”

            Elisabeth snorted to avoid a laugh.  After a moment of reaching stalemate with the other woman’s gaze, she stepped back so that the doctor could come in.  “Not that I’m trusting you, mind,” she said, as the doctor brushed gently past her into the flat.  “He’s in my bedroom.  Through there.”

            The doctor strode briskly into the bedroom, with Elisabeth trailing anxiously, and put her heavy satchel over her head to set down on the foot of the bed.  “And you must be the patient,” she said to Rupert, who was looking, if possible, even more seedy than he had a minute ago.  “I’m Dr. Kettering-Carter.  And your name is?”

            Rupert blinked up from under his damp cloth.  “Rupert Giles,” he said.  “Who are you?”

            “I’m a friend of Mr. Robson,” she answered, plucking away the cloth and lifting his wrist.  She shook her watch free of her tweed sleeve and set her incisive gaze upon it.

            “Council?” Rupert murmured.

            “Indeed not, or your admirable friend would not have admitted me to her home.  Mr. Robson and I,” she said, “take turns owing each other favors.”  She put down his wrist with a small cluck, flipped open her satchel, and drew out a digital thermometer.

            “Who owes now?” Rupert inquired faintly, as she sought his ear with the device.

            “Robson,” the doctor said, succinctly.

            “Ah.”

            The thermometer beeped, and the doctor removed it to read.  “102.9.  Not propitious.”

            “Damn,” Rupert said.  He moved his head so that the doctor could look at his eyes with her penlight.

            “I understand you have been injured.”

            Rupert’s hand drifted down to his ribs in response.  Gently she pulled down the covers and lifted his limp T-shirt.  As Elisabeth watched, the doctor peeled away the dressing she had put on his wound the night before and examined the stitches through her thick glasses.  “Hmm,” the doctor said softly.

            “He hasn’t thrown up any blood,” Elisabeth piped up.  Her voice caught in her throat halfway through the sentence, and she cleared it.

            “Thank goodness for small mercies.”  The doctor refastened the adhesive tape.  “I’ll change this later.”  She reached into her satchel again and came out with two hypodermics.  Elisabeth shifted back a step, so that she was leaning against the doorframe, and put her hands behind her.  But it wasn’t till the doctor bid Rupert turn over that she lost her nerve and went out into the hall, so as not to see what she did to him from behind.  Her gaze drifted over the stasis of mess in her flat: the phonebook she’d unearthed from her desk, the litter of paper and notes that had fallen to the floor, the untouched books, the empty cups and glasses, Rupert’s luggage, rifled and spilling out onto the ratty couch.  _Deep breaths_, she told herself.  _He’ll be all right_.

            But of all the things to happen!  Elisabeth didn’t trust serendipity, in this dimension or any other, and she was suspicious of the doctor’s appearance—what was her name again?  Why on earth had she let the woman in instead of calling the hospital like a person with _brains_ would do?  And what business had she getting squeamish and hanging out in the hall while that doctor did God-knew-what to Rupert?

            Screwing up her courage, Elisabeth made an about-face and went back into her bedroom, in time to see the doctor stowing her empty hypodermics in a disposal box.  “Well?” she croaked.  “What’s the story?”

            The doctor (Elisabeth still couldn’t remember her name) looked up.  “I’ve given him an anti-emetic and a broad-spectrum antibiotic.  He’s badly dehydrated; as soon as the anti-emetic takes effect we’ll have to rehydrate him.  Do you have any electrolyte fluid in the house?”

            Elisabeth shook her head.

            “We’ll need to get some.  The local chemist stocks it, I believe.  In fact, if you go now, we can have it when he’s ready for it.”  The doctor named two brands and where to look for them.  But Elisabeth shook her head again.

            “I can’t leave him,” she said.

            The doctor lowered her chin and regarded her gravely.  “He needs the fluid,” she said.  “Otherwise he’ll have to be hospitalized.”

            “I understand that,” Elisabeth said, her voice growing reedy as she firmed it.  “But I’m not leaving him.”

            The doctor looked her in the eye for a long moment; it appeared that she was nobody’s fool, for she said after a pause:  “Very well then.  I’ll go and get the necessary items.  It shouldn’t take long.  Here.”  She reached into her jacket pocket for a card and pen, and scribbled a number on the back.  “If there are any distressing developments, ring this number.”  She checked her pockets swiftly and without another word strode out of the room.  A moment later there was the quiet, efficient click of the front door; and then silence.

            Elisabeth wandered to the window and looked out.  Robson had not returned, and she could just see the doctor’s sensible skirt whipping out of sight down the road.  She sighed heavily.

            “You could have gone, you know,” Rupert said quietly from the bed.  “She’s all right; she wouldn’t have hurt me.”

            Elisabeth’s throat ached, and she cleared it.  “I know.”  She moved round to his side of the bed and sat down carefully at his side. 

            His eyes were closed.  Elisabeth studied his face: the strained, drawn look had eased somewhat, and his color was the tiniest bit better.  She smoothed the covers over his chest, in a brief, idle movement.

            “I came to you,” he said softly, “because I knew you wouldn’t need to ask questions.  And because you felt safe.”

            She barked out a small laugh at that, but her throat ached worse than ever.  “Safe, you call me,” she said.  “If I were a competent friend I’d have called the hospital last night.”

            He opened his eyes, which though still feverish were clear.  “You did what I asked you,” he said.  “You did more than that.  I seem to recall being very stupid about a cup of tea.”

            She laughed, and the sting in her eyes abated a little.  “You really were.”

            “I’m terribly sorry,” he said, for the umpteenth time; but he was smiling faintly, and in relief she reached to smooth his wayward hair.  “I don’t remember much,” he added.  “Please forgive anything else I did—that was—”

            “Don’t worry,” she said.  “You didn’t have the wherewithal to do anything much other than be stubborn.”

            He shut his eyes again.

            “And now all you have to do is rest.”

            “I’m never going to make my flight at this rate,” he murmured.

            “No.  I’ll call Sunnydale and let them know you’ll be delayed.”

            “All right,” he said.  He sighed, and relaxed into a peaceful limbo that Elisabeth could tell was not quite sleep, not quite waking.  She smoothed his hair once more, then stood, aching.

            She had a phone call to make.

 

*

 

“Hello?”

            To Elisabeth’s immense relief, it was Tara’s voice on the other end.  “Tara?”

            “Y-es,” Tara said warily.

            “This is Elisabeth Bowen.  You may not remember me; I was in Sunnydale for a short time last year, and Rupert sent me to England....”

            “Oh...oh!  Yes, I remember....Oh.”  Elisabeth listened apprehensively to her pensive pause.  “Is...is something wrong?”

            “Well,” Elisabeth said, “I guess that depends.  Rupert is here.”

            “Oh, thank God.  _Willow__!_” she shouted.  “We’ve found Giles.  —He was supposed to call two days ago,” she explained to Elisabeth.  “We’ve tried all the numbers he gave us, but he wasn’t at any of them, and obviously the Council— Is he all right?”

            “I think he will be,” Elisabeth said, controlling a deep shiver.  “He’s too sick to go anywhere at present.  He’s at my flat, with a doctor attending to him, and he’ll probably be here a few days at least.”

            “Well—that’s—that’s good.  He needs to rest.  Is there anything…anything we can do?”

            Elisabeth tried to think, but her mind turned over helplessly on her.  “I—I don’t think so.  I’ll give you my telephone number so you can call if you need to, but really the only thing seems to be resting and waiting.”

            “Let me get a pen.”

            Elisabeth gave Tara her number, and was just going to make noises about ending the call so she could tend to him, when she heard another voice.

            “You’ve found Giles?  Is he okay?  Let me talk to him.”  There was a rattle, and the voice came clear over the line.  “Giles?”

            Elisabeth cleared her throat.  “No, it’s—”

            “Who’s this?  Where’s Giles?  Is he okay?”

            “Dawnie,” Elisabeth heard Tara say gently, “give me the phone, sweetie.  I have to finish.”

            “Is Giles okay?” Dawn insisted.

            Elisabeth forced her voice to work before the tearful strain in the girl’s voice could get any worse.  “He’s all right.  He’s worn himself to exhaustion, but he’s resting now, and he’s going to be all right.  He’s at my apartment, where it’s safe.”  These were half-truths, but they weren’t outright lies, and Elisabeth had no intention of lying to Dawn of all people.

            “He’s all right,” Dawn repeated, not making it a question.

            “He’s got a doctor attending him and everything.”

            “They make…house calls in England?”

            “Some do,” Elisabeth said wryly.

            “So who are _you_?”  This with the cool aggression of the very young.

            “His friend Elisabeth,” she heard Tara say before she could answer.  “Give me the phone, Dawnie.”  There was a rustling pause, and Tara said, “I’m back.  Is there anything else?”

            “No,” Elisabeth said feebly.  “I’ll call if there are any urgent developments.”

            “Okay,” Tara said.  “And—thanks.”

            “It’s no problem,” Elisabeth said.  She sat down in her desk chair, feeling faint; and sat there a long moment even after the call had ended.

            She felt as if she had been spun a hundred and eighty degrees and left to look backward as if it were forward.  Yesterday at this time, her flat had carried only the faintest vestiges of her origins in Sunnydale.  Now, Sunnydale had come to her, crowding the air with its approaching thunder—a fate not nearly as metaphorical as she had hoped.

            Elisabeth got up and went into the bathroom to wash her hands.  As she reached for the towel, she stopped to give herself a long look in the mirror.  _It’s no problem_, she had told Tara.  But the fact was that she had just saved Rupert Giles’s life, without even noticing.  Without even marking the event she had just reached into his life up to her elbows and affected the course of their history.

            Nonsense, she tried to tell herself.  If Rupert hadn’t come to her, Robson would have caught up with him and put him in hospital, by hook or by crook.  And it wasn’t as if she’d lost the link with Robson: that doctor friend of his was probably on her way back with medicines for Rupert right now.  Elisabeth breathed a little easier, but the tremor in her nerves did not quite go away.  She sighed, watching the rise and fall of her own bathrobed chest in the mirror.

            “Looks like we’re back,” she murmured.

            The doorbell rang; and Elisabeth went, to go and let in the doctor, and the Council, and Sunnydale.


End file.
